Ben Gunstone wrote one of the most popular matchday songs at The Mem – ‘Tote End Boys’ – but has died aged 53
Ben Gunstone performing with his daughter Flo
Tributes have been paid following the tragic death of Bristol Rovers supporter, Ben Gunstone, who wrote the popular matchday song at The Mem – Tote End Boys.
Gunstone was a teacher, but also wrote, recorded, and performed music alongside his day job, but tragically has died aged 53.
The Tote End Boys song was released in September 2002 and was initially played after a match where Rovers had drawn or lost. It is a song that pays homage to the Tote End at the former Eastville Stadium, which was Rovers’ home until 1986.
At the end of the 2021/22 season, when the Gas snatched the last automatic promotion spot in League Two, it was sung to more positive emotions, though, especially when Joey Barton’s side beat Port Vale, Rochdale, and Scunthorpe United in the final few weeks of the campaign.
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In fact, it was a part of the pre-match playlist ahead of the final day game against Scunthorpe at The Mem, which saw Rovers win 7-0 and finish ahead of Northampton Town on goals scored.
READ MORE: Tom Lockyer frustrated after Bristol Rovers seventh consecutive league defeat
OPINION
“I’d been going to Rovers for a long time with my dad, my brother, my grandad, my great uncle – we’re all Rovers,” Gunstone said when speaking to Bristol Live in July 2022 about the origins of the song and his journey as a Rovers supporter.
“And my dad’s friend, who had been watching the Gas with him since the 50s, challenged me to do a version of Goodnight Irene.
“Everybody’s done Goodnight Irene so if I was going to do anything, I’ll do something original. It was a song very much about the ghosts of Eastville Stadium. It was a pretty impressionable place for a young soul to be in the early 1980s.
“I had the top line – ‘can you hear the Tote End Boys sing’ – first, and just sang that over a chord sequence that I knew would work with that line. I originally had a stream of lyrics and then tried to edit it down to keep references and images in there which summed it up, by not saying too much – sometimes less is more.”
The Thatchers End in full song with (inset) songwriter Ben Gunstone (Picture: GettyImages)
The 53-year-old, who was recently Deputy head of Warminster School, added: “I guess it’s a dedication to Rovers supporters everywhere – dead or alive – that’s the spirit of the thing, whether they’re on the Tote End, the popular side of Twerton Park or the Blackthorn, now Thatchers, End.
“The first game I saw was against Derby in November 1980 and it was a 1-1 draw. I remember in that season the South Stand had burned down. It was a great big, old falling-apart thing.
“And so Rovers only played about one game at home and then they came back and in the days before health and safety, you had this great big ghostly iron structure still there. And as a kid, from the Northern Enclosure, just staring at this great big hulk of burnt iron, it was quite an impressionable image.
“There is nostalgia there (in the song) but it’s also about the present spirit of Rovers – we’re a nomadic, roving team.
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“Rovers are about unity through adversity. If you’re fatalistic about this, we seem to have a lot of things that didn’t quite work out – 1940, selling Eastville for peanuts; my dad always talks about the 1955/56 season where we were on course for the top-flight and then Geoff Bradford broke his leg and we were never able to replace him; the fact we had to move to Bath and the highs and lows of trying to get a new ground. After all, it’s in the name – Rovers.”
T
Verse
The flowers are dead and gone behind the Eastville goals,
The traffic’s a little quieter on the Stapleton road.
Ghosts of Bamford and Barrett steel,
Shadows on a drizzle field.
Chorus
And can you hear the Tote End Boys sing,
I can hear everything.
And when the north Bristol chorus rings,
I can hear everything.
Verse
The flowers are shopping malls on the Eastville goals,
I was blue and white quarters from the age of three years old.
The Francis golden age,
We paid that player’s wage.
Chorus
And can you hear the Tote End Boys sing,
I can hear everything.
And when the north Bristol chorus rings,
I can hear everything.
Bridge
Bradford, Meyer, Biggs,
The 7th of January 1956.
Chorus
And can you hear the Tote End boys sing,
I can hear everything.
And when the north Bristol chorus rings,
I can hear everything.
And can you hear the Tote End Boys sing,
Irene I’ll see you in my dreams.
And when the north Bristol chorus rings,
I can hear everything.
I can hear everything.
The flowers are dead and gone behind the Eastville goals
RIP Ben – from everyone at Bristol Live. Our thoughts are with your family and friends.
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